This Company Is Giving the World a Look Into the Future of Media

In Brief

A new company called SVRF wants people to experience virtual reality on a daily basis and build a routine around it.

After realizing people spend most of the day staring at browser windows, they created SVRF Tabs, a Chrome extension that puts 360 content in every tab.

Our Digital Future

When computers were first introduced, they fundamentally changed how information was proceed. The machines evolved to combine the monitor, CPU, and keyboard into an all-in-one machine the paved the way for mobility. Thanks to the internet – the gateway to a world of information – media and experiences that were once a novelty slowly became more accessible. It wasn’t long after this that smartphones and tablets were introduced. Used in tandem with the internet, these devices placed the world in the palm of our hands.

And yes, there’s still room for improvement. Following the trajectory computers and digital media have taken in the past year, it looks like virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) will be the defining technology of the future.

The arrival of the HTC Vive, Oculus, Google Cardboard, and the Samsung Gear VR are just the beginning. These devices were largely focused on redefining traditional gaming. This year, it’s likely that VR will move out of this niche and into more practical, essential, and day to day applications thanks to companies like SVRF who want to democratize the VR experience.

SVRF Tab

SVRF defines virtual reality as 360, stereoscopic, 3D photos and videos – as well as 3D environments, objects and experiences. Their goal is to educate and expose the public to virtual reality by making it easily accessible and searchable through a personalized experience.

The team behind SVRF figured people needed to build a routine around experiencing available VR content – something minimal from tools they already had access to – but still perfectly illustrating how VR will revolutionize digital media media. That’s how SVRF Tabs was created.

As we’ve been building SVRF, we’ve been thinking a lot about how to get people to experience VR/360 on a daily basis and build a routine around it. We realized some of the most under-utilized, ‘immersive’ real-estate is within browser tabs (a big, bright screen that takes up an entire view, that people spend most of their day staring at), so we thought ‘Why not put beautiful 360 content in every tab?’

Image Credit: SVRF

Image Credit: SVRFImage Credit: SVRF

SVRF Tabs is a simple Chrome extension that essentially becomes a portal to the company’s web platform dedicated specifically to VR content. From here, users can search for specific VR content by keyword or category, or use computer vision algorithms. Soon, the company will launch a mobile version available for iOS and Android, as well as the SVRF mobile apps, which will offer VR content on mobile or with any Google Cardboard headset.

VR will change the way we work, play, learn, even experience the world around us. It may sound like a lot of hype, but right now, pioneers like SVRF, are making sure that it happens.